Among the public monuments comes first, in excellence, Ranch’s celebrated statue of Frederick the Great, which stands in Unter den Linden opposite the palace of the emperor William I.; and in size the monument to the emperor William I. (by R. Begas), erected opposite the west portal of the royal palace. The space for the site was gained by pulling down the old houses composing the Schlossfreiheit and damming the Spree. The monument, which cost £200,000, is surmounted by an equestrian statue of the emperor in a martial cloak, his right hand resting on a field marshal’s baton, reining in his charger, which is led by a female genius of peace. The high pedestal on which these figures stand is surrounded by an Ionic colonnade. The equestrian statue of the great elector on the Lange-brücke has been already mentioned. In the Lustgarten is a statue of Frederick William III., by Wolff; in the Tiergarten, Drake’s marble monument to the same ruler; and in the mausoleum in the park in Charlottenburg he and his queen, Louisa, are sculptured in marble by Rauch. Here also lie the emperor William I. and the empress Augusta under marble effigies by Encke. A second group of monuments on the Wilhelms-platz commemorates the generals of the Seven Years’ War; and a third in the neighbourhood of the opera-house the generals who fought against Napoleon I. On the Kreuzberg a Gothic monument in bronze was erected by Frederick William III. to commemorate the victories of 1813–1815; and in the centre of the Königs-platz stands a lofty column in honour of the triumphs of 1864, 1866 and 1870–1871, surmounted by a gilded figure of Victory. Literature, science and art are represented in different parts of the city by statues and busts of Rauch, Schinkel, Thaer, Beuth, Schadow, Winckelmann, Schiller, Hegel and Jahn. On the Königs-platz between the column of Victory and the Reichstagsgebäude, and immediately facing the western façade of the latter, is the bronze statue of Bismarck, unveiled in 1901, a figure 20 ft. in height standing on a granite base. From the south side of the Königs-platz crossing the Tiergarten and intersecting the avenue from the Brandenburg Gate to Charlottenburg runs the broad Sieges-allee adorned by thirty-two groups of marble statuary representing famous rulers of the house of Hohenzollern, the gift of the emperor William II. to the city. The Tiergarten, the beautiful west-end park with its thickets of dense undergrowth and winding lanes and lakes has lost somewhat of its sylvan character owing to building encroachments on the north side and the laying out of new rides and drives. It has, in addition to those above enumerated, statues of Queen Louisa, Goethe and Lessing.
Communications.—Berlin is the centre of the North German network of railways. No fewer than twelve main lines concentrate upon it. Internal communication is provided for by the Ringbahn, or outer circle, which was opened in 1871, and by a well-devised system connects the termini of the various main lines. The through traffic coming from east and west is carried by the Stadtbahn, or city railway, which also connects with and forms an integral part of the outer circle. This line runs through the heart of the city, and was originally a private enterprise. Owing, however, to the failure of the company, the work was taken in hand by the state, and the line opened in 1878. It has four tracks—two for the main-line through traffic, and two for local and suburban service, and is carried at a height of about 20 ft. above the streets. Its length is 12 m., the total cost 334 millions sterling. The chief stations are Zoologischer Garten, Friedrich-strasse, Alexander-platz and Schlesischer Bahnhof. Lying apart from the system are the Lehrter Bahnhof for Hamburg and Bremen, the Stettiner for Baltic ports, and the Görlitzer, Anhalter and Potsdamer termini for traffic to the south, of which the last two are fine specimens of railway architecture. Internal communication is also provided for by an excellent system of electric tram-lines, by an overhead electric railway running from the Zoologischer Garten to the Schlesische Tor with a branch to the Potsdam railway station, and by an underground railway laid at a shallow depth under the Leipziger-strasse. Most of the cabs (victorias and broughams) have fare-indicators. Steamboats ply above and below the city.
Industry, Trade and Commerce.—It is in respect of its manufacture and trade that Berlin has attained its present high pitch of economic prosperity. More than 50% of its working population are engaged in industry, which embraces almost all branches, of which new ones have lately sprung into existence, whilst most of the older have taken a new lease of life. The old wool industry, for example, has become much extended, and now embraces products such as shawls, carpets, hosiery, &c. Its silk manufactures, formerly so important, have, however, gradually gone back. It is particularly in the working of iron, steel and cloth, and in the by-products of these, that Berlin excels. The manufacture of machinery and steam-engines shows an enormous development. No fewer than 100 large firms, many of them of world-wide reputation, are engaged in this branch alone. Among the chief articles of manufacture and production are railway plant, sewing machines, bicycles, steel pens, chronometers, electric and electric-telegraph plant, bronze, chemicals, soap, lamps, linoleum, china, pianofortes, furniture, gloves, buttons, artificial flowers and ladies’ mantles, the last of an annual value exceeding £5,000,000. It has extensive breweries and vies in the amount of the output of this production with Munich. Berlin is also the great centre and the chief market for speculation in corn and other cereals which reach it by water from Poland, Austria and South Russia, while in commerce in spirits it rivals Hamburg. It is also a large publishing centre, and has become a serious rival to Leipzig in this regard.
The Börse, where 4000 persons daily do business, is the chief market in Germany for stocks and shares, and its dealings are of great influence upon the gold market of the world. Numerous banks of world-wide reputation, doing an extensive international business, have their seats in Berlin, chief among them, in addition to the Reichs-bank, being the Berliner Kassen-Verein, the Diskonto-Gesellschaft, the Deutsche Bank, and the Boden-Kredit Bank.
Learning and Art.—Berlin is becoming the centre of the intellectual life of the nation. The Friedrich Wilhelm University, although young in point of foundation, has long outstripped its great rival Leipzig in numbers, and can point with pride to the fact that its teaching staff has yielded to none in the number of illustrious names. It was founded in 1810, when Prussia had lost her celebrated university of Halle, which Napoleon had included in his newly created kingdom of Westphalia. It was as a weapon of war, as well as a nursery of learning, that Frederick William III. and the great men who are associated with its origin, called it into existence. Wilhelm von Humboldt was at that time at the head of the educational department of the kingdom, and men like Fichte and Schleiermacher worked on the popular mind. Within the first ten years of its existence it counted among its professors such names as Neander, Savigny, Eichhorn, Böckh, Bekker, Hegel, Raumer, Niebuhr and Buttmann. Later followed men like Hengstenberg, Homeyer, Bethmann-Hollweg, Puchta, Stahl and Heffter; Schelling, Trendelenburg, Bopp, the brothers Grimm, Zumpt, Carl Richter; later still, Twesten and Dorner, Gneist and Hinschius; Langenbeck, Bardeleben, Virchow, Du-Bois Reymond; von Ranke, Curtius, Lipsius, Hofmann the chemist, Kiepert the geographer; Helmholtz, van’t Hoff, Koch, E. Fischer, Waldeyer and von Bergmann among scientists and surgeons; Mommsen, Treitschke and Sybel among historians, Harnack among theologians, Brunner among jurists. Taking ordinary, honorary, extraordinary professors and licensed lecturers (Privat-docenten) together, its professorial strength consisted, in 1904–1905, of 23 teachers in the faculty of theology, 32 in that of law, 175 in that of medicine and 227 in that of philosophy—altogether 457. The number of matriculated students during the same period was 7154, as against 5488 in the preceding summer term. The number of matriculated students is usually greater in winter than in summer; the reason of the disproportion being that in the summer university towns having pleasant surroundings, such as Bonn, Heidelberg, Kiel and Jena, are more frequented. Berlin is essentially a Prussian university—of students from non-German states, Russia sends most, then the United States of America, while Great Britain is credited with comparatively
